


The Long Way Around

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s05e13 The Song Remains the Same, Gen, Stuck in the past, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 14:53:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1351504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Castiel's powers fail him, the only way to get back to the future is to live his way there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Way Around

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ 2/6/2010.

He doesn’t remember much of the first few days. Just bits and pieces, snatches playing through stop animation. The only thought through his head is, _Winchesters, I must get to the Winchesters._  
  
Through no small miracle (and it is a miracle, a miracle he is still here, a miracle he is still alive) he  _finds_  the Winchesters.  
  
They’re just not the right Winchesters.  
  
As he believes Dean would say;  _Figures._  
  


***

  
  
John and Mary Winchester he knows. He knows them from research. He has observed them before. During the first time he brought Dean back here they had not been people in his mind. They had been abstract concepts given movable parts. They had been characters in a story where the end had already been written. They had been a means to the end.  
  
But when Castiel finally comes to for real, there is a curious drift of voices. For a single second, he believes it is the voices of his brethren but he realizes shortly the voices are drifting to his ears and not his mind. He fights disappointment (it was the first feeling he could name and it tastes bitter in his mouth).  
  
“Hey,” a soft voice tells him. “Hey, you’re okay.”  
  
There is a hand on his shoulder and he flashes back suddenly to Sam and Dean clutching at his coat. He opens his eyes and it’s the blond figure of Mary Winchester leaning over him with a frazzled, maternal sort of air. “You’re glowing,” he notes absently.  
  
“You must be more out of it then we thought,” another voice says.  
  
John Winchester, cool and calm, only the ghost of worry on his unmarked face. There is no fear. No apprehension. It means that Sam and Dean are not here. It means that as far as John and Mary are concerned, Sam and Dean were never here. Which can only mean one thing.  
  
Divine intervention.  
  
The host of heaven has erased all evidence of his Winchesters in this time. Which means that Anna has failed. Relief washes through him.  
  
“Are you all right?” Mary prods. “We wanted to take you to the hospital but in this weather...” She gestured outside to the rain spattered darkness. “We figured it was better to just let you sleep it off here.”  
  
“Thank you,” Castiel says.  
  
“Care to tell us who you are?” John asks abruptly. “No offense, but I don’t usually like my wife associating with guys that stumbled bleeding into my house.”  
  
“Cas-” he has to stop himself before he completes his entire name. He does not know how they will take to mention of angels. He closes his eyes and calls to memory the name on one of the fake IDs Dean has made him. “Lucas Miller. Cas.”  
  
It is a far cry from  _I am an angel of the lord_  and the lie burns as it passes his lips.  
  
“Well, Cas, what happened to you?”  
  
“I was looking for my friends,” he says. Not a lie. That is important. Thou shall not lie. “I was rendered... indisposed.”  
  
“If they’re the kind of friends that get you jumped like that they might not be worth knowing,” John says, but there is a look in Mary’s eyes. Something distant and familiar. He wonders if she can recognize hunters on sight. It is most fortunate for him that he is not a true hunter.  
  
“I thank you for your hospitality,” Castiel says. The thunder crashes in the storm outside and he thinks of Rafael’s wings, made of lighting and his own slowly wilting into a purely human visage. “I must go.”  
  
Something like humor twinkles in Mary’s eyes but it’s buried under undisguised worry. “If you must.”  
  
He walks out of the Winchester household and into the pouring rain, staring up at the sky as if that would help restore his failing powers. He closes his eyes and gathers all his strength.  
  
And goes nowhere.  
  


***

  
  
It is one week later that he resigns himself to the fact that his powers are not returning.  
  
Two weeks later when he realizes he has to eat to sustain himself.   
  
Three weeks later when he starts sleeping with any regularity.   
  
One month later when he runs into John Winchester at the bar.  
  
He doesn’t know why he has come here. Suspects it’s because this is where Dean would be.   
  
John looks at him from a distance and then strides up to sit down next to him, face alight with curiosity. “Lucas Miller, right? Mary and I have been worrying after you. Did you find your friends?”  
  
He has not found any evidence of Sam or Dean Winchester in this time. He assumes that they are safe, thinks almost unreasonably, that he would know if either of them were dead. Dean’s medal still hangs from his neck. It would not still be there if the Winchesters had died at some point in the past.   
  
“No,” he tells John. “But I pray that they are safe.”  
  
“I’ll drink to that,” John says.   
  


***

  
  
He gets a job because humans need money to survive in this world. He knows the principals of human living but the practice is infinitely more complicated then he could have ever suspected. There are choices everywhere he turns and it is both intimidating and exhilarating. He buys a few changes of clothes and finds an apartment. He works as a bartender at the bar John frequents.   
  
He cannot protect his Winchesters but John and Mary he can help.  
  
He finds somehow that he likes them.  
  
They are simple and surprisingly unburdened. He can see the fingerprints of an angel in their psyche. He dimly recognizes it as Michael’s work but to pry farther then that, to see what was taken, what was changed is beyond his meager powers.   
  
But he can take solace in their presence. The love between the two of them glows, a soft golden light that warms him every time he sees it. John invites him to dinner.   
  
He still has problems with relaxation, his spine straightens almost unconsciously but at this table, in this house, he finds it gets easier.   
  


***

  
  
Dean is born on a brisk January afternoon. Castiel is not there, but he can feel it happen, like a subtle shift in the atmosphere and everything in the world feels just a little bit better.  
  
He does not meet him in person until almost a month after when he invites the Winchesters over for dinner and little Dean’s fist curls around his finger.  
  
Castiel laughs and thinks he’s dying because it’s the first time he’s ever made that sound.  
  


***

  
  
The Winchesters are not threatened. It is as if the deal a young Mary Winchester made keeps them entirely free from the supernatural for the requisite ten years.   
  
John Winchester becomes his best friend. He reminds him of Dean in a way. He drags Castiel to bars, attempting to set him up with a variety of very attractive women and laughs long and heartily into his beer at Castiel’s genuine confusion.  
  
He comes to appreciate these quiet, human moments with John. Just like he appreciates the warmth of Mary’s kitchen, the comfortable feeling of a full stomach and the smile of the infant, Dean.   
  


***

  
  
Two years old, Dean looks up at him with bright green eyes, smiles, calls him Uncle Cas and he falls just a little bit in love.  
  
He is stuck thirty years out of time, a step away from fallen and he regrets nothing.  
  


***

  
  
Sam is born on a Monday in May. John calls him late that night asking if he can look over Dean. So he obliges, sits with Dean on his lap and tells him about his brother. Tells him how their names will be things of legend.  
  
And he thinks about Mary’s deal coming due. He thinks of Dean’s frantic warnings. He realizes with a start that he may be in a position to change it.  
  
Hope springs wildly in his chest but dies the instant after. If he changes this, he will have never had need to come back which means nothing will have changed at all. If he was still at his full power, he may have been able to combat this pull of paradox but for now it is hopeless.  
  
He will protect them all as well as he can for as long as he can.  
  


***

  
  
“You look older,” he tells John one night at the bar.  
  
“I’ve got two kids,” John laughs. But there is something dark settling over this town and even his ignorant friend can feel it.  
  
It is November 1st 1983.  
  


***

  
  
John comes to him after the fire and Castiel can see the changes on the entire family. Can see the drive in John’s eyes. Can see the stain on Sam’s soul. Can see the loneliness etched into Dean’s ever feature.  
  
They stay with him for two weeks. He stands at John’s side during the funeral.  
  
“I saw something in the fire, Cas,” John says one night while the boys are asleep. “And I keep thinking I’m crazy but I can’t get it out of my head.”  
  
Castiel closes his eyes, listening to the low hum of the Winchester’s breathing from the next room. “If I have learned one thing from my time here, it is that John Winchester’s judgment can be trusted.”  
  


***

  
  
Before he leaves, John pulls him into a gruff hug and mutters, “You’re a better friend then I deserve.”  
  
John does not seek him out again. It is still more then twenty years before the angel Castiel plucks Dean Winchester from Hell.   
  


***

  
  
He puts in his two weeks notice at the bar and pulls together his savings to buy a car. He starts accumulating weapons to put in its trunk. He has an almost infinite knowledge of monsters in his head and it would be a sin not to use it.  
  
He feels that he has spent the last four years learning how to be human. His powers show no signs of returning so it is now time to learn to be a hunter.  
  
With twenty years of hunting under his belt, he may be of use to the Winchesters yet.   
  


***

  
  
In 1987 he sees Fatal Attraction in a dingy little theater, thinks of Dean and Glenn Close and laughs.  
  


***

  
  
He stays as close to the Winchesters as he dares, does what he can to get some extra money to Dean when he can. He might not be able to show his face but he can do what he can to ease their burdens.  
  
He watches as John ages, as the lines etch themselves into his face. He thinks of his friend so nervous at the birth of his first child. Thinks of John with his arm around Mary’s waist, the gold tendrils of their love a comforting presence to Castiel’s battered soul.  
  


***

  
  
In 2005 John Winchester finds him. The family had split apart. Dean hunting on his own. He’d floundered with indecision, his every instinct telling him to follow Dean but he had stopped himself. In a few weeks Dean would have his brother. John has no one.  
  
So it’s his fault really that he gets too close and he gets noticed.  
  
“I know you’re following me,” John Winchester says to the darkness.  
  
Castiel could choose to remain hidden but he decides not to. He thinks of his first entrance, the first time he saw Dean with glorious wings and crackling lights.  
  
His wings have withered to nothing now. He sidles out of the shadows, and offers him a small comforting smile. “Hello, John.”  
  
He sees the knife a second before it sails toward him and if he had not moved, it would have impaled itself in his forehead.   
  
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”  
  
“You’re not Lucas Miller,” John says. “You look just like he did twenty years ago but you are not him.”  
  
Castiel scratches the side of his head almost self consciously. It is the one external factor manifest from the dim light of his last bits of grace. He scars like a human, breathes like a human, bleeds like a human, sleeps, eats and defecates like a human but he does not age like one. “I assure you, I am he.”  
  
John snorts, clearly displaying his disbelief. “How long have you been following me?”  
  
“Since you left Lawrence,” Castiel answers truthfully. “I have endeavored to keep myself hidden. I regret that my presence has distressed you.”  
  
“You are not Cas.”  
  
“You may believe whatever you please but know that I am here to offer whatever assistance I can.”  
  
“And why would you possibly do that?”  
  
“Through observation I have determined that a hunter is most effective working in a pair.”  
  
“I work alone. I’m after something big. I don’t need anyone else getting hurt.”  
  
“I will not permit you to do this alone.”  
  


***

  
  
John spikes his beer with holy water, cuts him with a silver knife and tries attempts to pin him down under devil’s traps and any other myriad of spells but fails each and every time.  
  
“What are you?” John demands.  
  
Castiel does not know how to answer him. He is both divine and mortal, human and angel, fallen and falling.   
  
“I am a hunter,” Castiel says.  
  
“Bullshit,” John returns but there is the ghost of a smile in his eyes, the ghost of the man he used to be and Castiel thinks he sees the beginning of trust in his eyes.  
  


***

  
  
The angel Castiel appears before him in a dream. He is terrible and beautiful, faithful and pure. A being of light without doubt and even in his dream, it physically hurts to look at him.  
  
“You are tied to the Winchesters,” the angel observes. “Yet you are unforetold.”  
  
Castiel crosses his arms, one of the first human gestures he had learned, one he uses almost without thought. “You are stating the obvious.”  
  
“I wish to know your involvement.”  
  
“You will,” Castiel tells him. “But it is not time yet.”  
  
He can sense the angel is confused, can almost picture his own form with head tilted sideways in confusion but he is assigning mannerisms to something that has no use for them. He can barely recognize himself in this being and knows that the angel is unaware of his counterpart as well.   
  
“The Winchesters are very precious to me,” he tells the angels. “Do not let anyone take them away from you.”  
  
The angel doesn’t respond and Castiel wonders what had happened to this memory. Wonders if this is something he lost when the angels decided he was too close to the Winchesters.   
  
“You will not remember this when you wake up,” the angel tells him.  
  
“Neither will you,” Castiel whispers.  
  


***

  
  
“I got a call from my boys,” John tells him, frantically picking up his belongings. “They’re in Chicago. You can finish this hunt, right? I need to get there. Need to help them.”  
  
“Of course,” Castiel tells him.   
  
It is the last time he ever sees his friend.  
  


***

  
  
He visits Mary Winchester’s grave a week or so after the Winchester brothers leave, guilt gnawing at his stomach. John is dead. He could have stopped it. Could have prevented John making a deal and he could have left Dean dead.   
  
He is fighting a losing battle, but it is the only way he knows how to fight.  
  


***

  
  
He keeps track of time more closely now. He never noticed time as an angel. Beings of eternity do not have use for it but now he ticks off the days. Milestones from his other life. The day he pulls Dean out from hell. The day Lucifer rises. The day Gabriel reveals himself. The day the Harvelles die.  
  
And then it’s another day, the right day. A day where he already knows the whereabouts of his friends.  
  
He knocks on the door to their motel room. It takes a second for the door to open and when it does open, Castiel is faced with two Winchesters and a pair of guns pointed at his chest.  
  
“Castiel?” Sam says, disbelief etched in his voice.  
  
“Holy Hell, Cas,” Dean breathes. “We thought you were dead.”  
  
“Reports of my demise,” he deadpans, “have been greatly exaggerated.”  
  
“Old Mikey beamed us back,” Dean explains. “We were half afraid he fireballed you like he did Anna.”  
  
“Michael was not aware of my location. I did not have the power to make it back here on my own.”  
  
Dean snorts. “But here you are. Must have had a little more angel juice then you thought you did.”  
  
“You got stuck,” Sam realizes. “Jesus, Cas. How long were you there?”  
  
Castiel hesitates before answering. “There are two ways to move through time. The first is the way angels do it. The second the way humans do.”  
  
“Wait, you mean you lived your way all the way back here?”  
  
“That is immaterial.” Castiel pulls his journal out of his battered duffel bag, flipping to a page in the middle. “I have been tracking some demonic omens...”  
  


***

  
  
They spend the next few hours huddled in the motel room, planning their next avenue of attack. It is not until dinner time when Sam is out getting three orders of burgers that Dean turns to Castiel and says, “We thought you were dead, dude. Another hour and we were going to find a way to time travel back to get you.”  
  
Castiel lets a smile slip to his lips though he knows his human mannerisms must unsettle Dean at least a little. He has learned how to read between the lines these past years. “It’s all right, Dean,” he says. “I missed you too.”


End file.
